


I'm Gonna Be Warm This Winter

by hgleiser



Series: Wrong Direction [10]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 19:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7544467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hgleiser/pseuds/hgleiser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Christmas in July time again, dear readers, and I've been itching to write my favorite OTP in the paddock getting together since I started this project.  Without further ado, here's Sebson building a gingerbread house.  Many thanks as always to L. and A. for seeing me through yet another pile of flufftastic fic.  Rated teen for some cursing.  Title comes from a Kylie Minogue song I refuse to feel embarrassed about dancing in my seat to even when it's not December.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Gonna Be Warm This Winter

If Sebastian closed his eyes and inhaled the scent coming from the kitchen, he could almost believe he was less than half his age and home again. _Kardamom, Muskat, Piment, Ingwer, Zimt, Pfeffer,_ he thought.  _Always in that order. Always magic._ It never mattered that the ‘magic’ was merely his mama’s spice cabinet—he had yet to stop believing. In holiday miracles, in Father Christmas(at least until he was twelve), and pfeffernüsse. 

Being the third of four children, he’d spent most of his childhood too young to use the oven but too old to merely sit on a stool by the counter and roll the dough into balls when it was time to make the soft, spicy cookies as family tradition dictated every December. However, as his mama’s own take on it insisted, each child was to help with some stage of the process and so he was put in charge of reading aloud which ingredient she needed next. 

“And now, Sebastian,” she’d said as she’d leaned down to plant a kiss on his forehead, “the magic spell that makes these special.”

“ Kardamom, Muskat, Piment, Ingwer, Zimt, Pfeffer , ” he would recite, sometimes without looking at the index card on which she had written the recipe if he wanted to show how good he was at remembering. 

“Danke,” she would say, smiling as she’d pull each small glass jar from the cabinet and pick up her measuring spoons. “Sehr gut.”

His sisters, who had known for some years the added tradition was put in place as a way to keep Sebastian from racing his toy cars through the kitchen as if it was Monza , had giggled with each other over his head.

It had been those memories, among others, that had prompted Sebastian to hand Jenson the faded index card that December afternoon with a hopeful smile. “Can you show me how not to mess these up? It wouldn’t be Christmastime for me without them.”

“Of course,” he replied, looking over his shoulder at the kitchen table piled with bowls of candy and a magazine open to a two-page spread of a gingerbread house. “On one condition.”

Sebastian looked wary, remembering that the last time Jenson used the phrase “on one condition” he had been more than happy to help him wash his car in the driveway—provided the soundtrack for doing so was the Spice Girls. “Here we go again.”

“I promise you won’t have to sing along to Say You’ll Be There. Come on, this will be fun.”

“Fine,” groaned Sebastian. “What is it?”

Jenson’s face lit up like he’d just been given everything on his Christmas list a week early. “You and I are going to build the best gingerbread house England has ever seen.”

“Gingerbread house? I thought I smelled pfeffernüsse and assumed you knew how...” Sebastian’s brow furrowed in confusion as he walked past Jenson into the kitchen and opened the oven door just enough to peer inside at the roof and walls of a gingerbread house, breathing in the familiar scent with a sigh. “I’m not sure how good it will look with my help, but it smells perfect.”

“What’s p—feff...whatever you smelled?”

Sebastian nodded toward the index card Jenson still held. “They’re small and very spicy cookies I helped my mother make every December. She gives them to people every year and they’re usually gone by the time I go home. Before I moved out she made a copy of her recipe for herself and gave me the original.”

“Awwwww. Right, we’ll tackle this today and that tomorrow. Does that work? We’ve got the next few afternoons to ourselves anyway, everyone else is getting an early start on their shopping and I’m the world’s worst procrastinator. You?”

“Finished last month and if you try to unlock my closet and peek Father Christmas isn’t bringing you anything.”

Jenson looked incredulous. “You think I don’t have the patience?”

“I _know_ you don’t have the patience. Stay away from my closet.”

Just as he was about to pout at Sebastian in the most irresistible way he could manage, the oven timer beeped and Jenson hurried to open the door, putting on the oven mitt nearby and pulling the baking sheet out. “Not too rubbish for my first try.”

“Mmmmm.” Sebastian licked his lips, imagining it tasted as good as his mama’s recipe. “Can we eat it after it’s done and we’ve shown it off to everyone else?”

“We’ve got to survive building it first.”

 

***

An hour—or maybe it was two, Jenson had lost count of how many times the local radio station played I’ll Be Home For Christmas by the time they were done—later, the two of them stood back to admire their handiwork. It was a simple three-room cottage nestled in the middle of a rectangle of flaked coconut snow, fenced in with pretzel sticks and bordered by trees made of ice cream cones and dark green icing. Sebastian had surprised himself with how adept he’d turned out to be with a piping bag, adorning the roof’s edge with many delicate icicles that weren’t in the picture to amuse himself, but Jenson looking impressed while he’d watched over his shoulder was a definite plus.

“I can’t wait till the rest of them see this. We were brilliant!” Jenson put his arm around Sebastian’s shoulders and smiled down at him. “Might have to do this next year. Oh, and you’ve got icing on your face, mate. How the hell did you manage that?”

Sebastian quickly reached behind himself to drop the rubber spatula he’d been licking into the sink and feigned innocence. “It was just there. Maybe I leaned in a little too closely putting the peppermints on the roof. You never know.”

“Seb...”

“Fine, I was taste testing! It was delicious.”

Jenson indicated the left corner of his mouth with one finger. “You missed a spot.”

“I almost got away with it,” Sebastian pouted. “They say thieves always make one vital mistake and that’s how they get caught.”

“Someone’s been staying up reading detective novels under the covers with a flashlight again,” chuckled Jenson.

“Only sometimes. For all you know, it could have been Jane Eyre.” Sebastian stuck his tongue out to the left and wiggled it around. “Did I get it?”

Jenson blinked, forcing himself to think of anything but where he could get him to put it to particularly good use, and grinned. “Nope.”

“Did I get it this time?”

“Nope. Try again.”

“I’m going to look in the bathroom mirror. I think you’re tricking me into making stupid faces so you can get your phone out when I least expect it and take a picture.”

“Aw, would I do that?”

Sebastian arched one eyebrow.

“Okay, yeah, I would.” It was a tempting thought, grabbing a few shots of Sebastian attempting to rid his face of the tiny dot of icing still stuck to his cheek and adding them to his box of memories, but another thought tempted him to further action. _If ever I wanted an excuse to kiss those full lips, I’m not going to find one better than this. Kissing him would be easy. Explaining what drove me to do it, not so much._ “Seb?”

“Yes?”

“Stand still.” Turning slightly and dipping his head low, he kissed the corner of Sebastian’s mouth, smiling when he moved just enough for their lips to meet for a brief moment before pulling apart. “Got it.”

“I feel like we might owe each other an explanation before we go any further,” Sebastian whispered, his hands circling Jenson’s waist. “We’re getting a little old to not kiss and tell, you know.”

Jenson chuckled nervously then took a deep breath. “I’m not getting any younger and...”

“You’d like to get laid again before you turn forty,” interjected Sebastian.

“God, you’re bad at being subtle.”

“Should I try that instead?”

“I’d be interested in what that looks like, yeah,” came Jenson’s sarcastic reply. “I’ve changed my mind. You go first.”

Sebastian muttered to himself a moment in German as if working out where to begin. “The day I auditioned I was nervous as hell...”

_Believe me, I remember,_ thought Jenson.  _I didn’t think someone’s voice could crack like that and you couldn’t get me to admit it was cute if you tried._

“...until I saw you. I don’t know how to explain it, but once I got that bloody guitar in tune I felt your eyes on me and all of a sudden didn’t feel like shitting myself. I didn’t want to just be good enough to make it into the group.” He tilted his head and scratched the back of his neck, looking more sheepish than Jenson had seen in a long time. “I wanted to be good enough for you.”

“Seb, I’m no better than you. All of this fame stuff just happened around me. Around all of us. I’m an average bloke when you take everything else away and besides, I only had a bit of say in hiring you. The final word was Toto’s. I wasn’t the one worth impressing the most.”

Sebastian moved his hands to Jenson’s shoulders and pushed him up against the pantry doors with enough force to elicit a soft grunt from the older man.

“What are you up to?”

“You were. You  _are.”_

Before he could open his mouth to protest, Jenson felt his lips being parted by the pressure of Sebastian’s mouth against them in a frenzied, urgent kiss.  _Don’t stop,_ the voice in his head pleaded.  _Don’t even think about it._ He wasn’t doing much thinking himself, for that matter; one hand cradled the back of Sebastian’s neck while the other slid up the back of his shirt, desperate to feel soft skin against his own.  _I need this. I need you._

Sebastian noticeably shuddered at the touch he’d spent more than a few mornings taking longer than normal in the shower fantasizing about.  _If he doesn’t understand by now he’s everything to me he never will,_ he thought, trying to regain the upper hand by slowly pushing his tongue into Jenson’s mouth until he moaned in response.  _Mm...that’s better._

When they broke apart several moments later to catch their breath, Jenson couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss or slap the smirk off Sebastian’s face as the younger man flicked his eyes over his face in such a way that he felt he was being undressed.

“Am I as sweet as icing?”

Jenson looked offended but made no effort to move his hand from the small of Sebastian’s back. “That’s _definitely_ not the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“It was an honest question.”

“Have you considered that you might be honest to a fault?”

Sebastian shrugged. “Not really.”

“Seb, you little shit. If you didn’t look so good I wouldn’t let you get away with half the things you do.”

“You always say that.” He grinned then kissed the left corner of Jenson’s mouth. “Anything else you’d like to call me?”

 _So much for trying to explain after all._ “Mine.”


End file.
